Argumentation as the public exchange of reasons is widely thought to enhance deliberative interactions that generate and justify reasonable public policies. Adopting an argumentation-theoretic perspective, we survey the norms that should govern public argumentation and address some of the complexities that scholarly treatments have identified. Our focus is on norms associated with the ideals of correctness and participation as sources of a politically legitimate deliberative outcome. In principle, both ideals are mutually coherent. If the information needed for a correct deliberative (...) outcome is distributed among agents, then maximising participation increases information diversity. But both ideals can also be in tension. If participants lack competence or are prone to biases, a correct deliberative outcome requires limiting participation. The central question for public argumentation, therefore, is how to strike a balance between both ideals. Rather than advocating a preferred normative framework, our main purpose is to illustrate the complexity of this theme. (shrink)

Human cognition is unique in the way in which it relies on combinatorial (or compositional) structures. Language provides ample evidence for the existence of combinatorial structures, but they can also be found in visual cognition. To understand the neural basis of human cognition, it is therefore essential to understand how combinatorial structures can be instantiated in neural terms. In his recent book on the foundations of language, Jackendoff described four fundamental problems for a neural instantiation of combinatorial structures: the massiveness (...) of the binding problem, the problem of 2, the problem of variables, and the transformation of combinatorial structures from working memory to long-term memory. This paper aims to show that these problems can be solved by means of neural “blackboard” architectures. For this purpose, a neural blackboard architecture for sentence structure is presented. In this architecture, neural structures that encode for words are temporarily bound in a manner that preserves the structure of the sentence. It is shown that the architecture solves the four problems presented by Jackendoff. The ability of the architecture to instantiate sentence structures is illustrated with examples of sentence complexity observed in human language performance. Similarities exist between the architecture for sentence structure and blackboard architectures for combinatorial structures in visual cognition, derived from the structure of the visual cortex. These architectures are briefly discussed, together with an example of a combinatorial structure in which the blackboard architectures for language and vision are combined. In this way, the architecture for language is grounded in perception. Perspectives and potential developments of the architectures are discussed. Key Words: binding; blackboard architectures; combinatorial structure; compositionality; language; dynamic system; neurocognition; sentence complexity; sentence structure; working memory; variables; vision. (shrink)

Protagoras of Abdera, Socrates’ older contemporary, is regarded as one of the most prominent representatives of the so-called sophistic movement. Instead of simply accepting the biased reports given by Plato and Aristotle about this sophist, the contributors to this volume review the complicated doxographical situation and make a case for Protagoras as a philosopher in his own right. Two major themes of this volume are Protagoras’ relativism and his case for a moral and political ideal, both of which are contrasted (...) with the metaphysical idealism of his future opponents in the Academy and the mundane conventionalism typically associated with the sophists. It turns out that rather than a parasitic force of intellectual subversion, Protagoras may have been a prolific and original thinker aiming at a coherent and comprehensive view of man’s place in the world. (shrink)

Using the artificial language paradigm, we studied the acquisition of morphophonemic alternations with exceptions by 160 German adult learners. We tested the acquisition of two types of alternations in two regularity conditions while additionally varying length of training. In the first alternation, a vowel harmony, backness of the stem vowel determines backness of the suffix. This process is grounded in substance (phonetic motivation), and this universal phonetic factor bolsters learning a generalization. In the second alternation, tenseness of the stem vowel (...) determines backness of the suffix vowel. This process is not based in substance, but it reflects a phonotactic property of German and our participants benefit from this language-specific factor. We found that learners use both cues, while substantive bias surfaces mainly in the most unstable situation. We show that language-specific and universal factors interact in learning. (shrink)

This book offers a text and translation of Theophrastus' "Metaphysics," together with a full commentary, which may be used as an introduction to the terminology of Aristotle's school. The Introduction provides an assessment of Theophrastus' contribution to Peripatetic thought on the principles of being.

Wilson et al. focus on one class of AGL tasks: the cognitively demanding task of detecting non‐adjacent dependencies (NADs) among items. They provide a typology of the different types of NADs in natural languages and in AGL tasks. A range of cues affect NAD learning, ranging from the variability and number of intervening elements to the presence of shared prosodic cues between the dependent items. These cues, important for humans to discover non‐adjacent dependencies, are also found to facilitate NAD learning (...) in several nonhuman animal species. (shrink)

Therefore, Lord, you who give knowledge of the faith, give me as much knowledge as you know to be fitting for me, because you are as we believe and that which we believe. Indeed, we believe you are something greater than which cannot be thought. Or is there no such kind of thing, for "the fool said in his heart, 'there is no God'" (Ps. 14:1, 53:1)? Certainly, however, that same fool, having heard what I just said, "something greater than (...) which cannot be thought," understands what he heard, and what he understands is in his thought, even if he does not think it exists. For it is one thing for something to exist in a person's thought and quite another for the person to think that thing exists. For when a painter thinks ahead to what he will paint, he has that picture in his thought, but he does not yet think it exists, because he has not done it yet. Once he has painted it, he has it in his thought and thinks it exists because he has done it. Thus, even the fool is compelled to grant that something greater than which cannot be thought exists in thought, because he understands what he hears, and whatever is understood exists in thought. And certainly that greater than which cannot be understood cannot exist only in thought, for if it exists only in thought it could also be thought of as existing in reality as well, which is greater. If, therefore, that than which greater cannot be thought exists in thought alone, then that than which greater cannot be thought turns out to be that than which something greater actually can be thought, but that is obviously impossible. Therefore, something than which greater cannot be thought undoubtedly exists both in thought and in reality. (shrink)

Statistics in public life .................................................................................................... .....5 Things and numbers............................................................................................. ...................8 Representative samples............................................................................................. ..........8 Averages: meaning and relevance .....................................................................................9 Correlations........................................................................................ ................................10 Applied statistics .................................................................................................... ................13 Relative risks .................................................................................................... ..................14 Relative risk versus absolute risk.....................................................................................16 Problems of classification and confounding factors....................................................17 Epidemiological research............................................................................................ ..........19 Publication bias................................................................................................ ..................20 Statistical significance versus scientific relevance................................................................24 Relative risk again............................................................................................... ...............24 P-values............................................................................................ ...................................25 Confidence intervals .................................................................................................... .....26 Correlation is not causation .............................................................................................26 An infamous episode .................................................................................................... ....27 Terror, utopianism and power .............................................................................................29 Faith and science .................................................................................................... ...........29 Fear and power: the precautionary principle.................................................................30 Utopian salvation........................................................................................... ....................32....

We can characterise modern democracies of the Western type as Hobbesian democracies.1 In a modern democracy the State is a political Sovereign of the Hobbesian kind, enjoying a constitutional authority that for all practical purposes is absolute, having the potential of reaching every nook and cranny of its subjects’ life and work. Its authority is restrained only by the requirement of respect for certain formalities and procedures, and the lingering memory of something called the rule of law.2 Hobbesian democracy’s peculiar (...) characteristic, of course, is that at least some of the people to whom the sovereign power of the State is entrusted are elected by secret ballot under a rule of universal suffrage. Winston Churchill said that ‘Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others’.3 He had a point: democracy is the worst form of totalitarian government except for all the others. However, why should we put up with any government that not only has virtually unlimited or absolute constitutional powers (as in an absolutist regime) but also uses them to regulate and tax everything and everybody within the territory under its control (as in a totalitarian regime4)? As we shall see, there are good reasons for saying that Hobbesian democracy is among the worst forms of government.. (shrink)

Belgium was already mired in a web of political crises for nearly a year when the full force of the bursting American credit bubble struck its seemingly robust financial system. Not surprisingly, the shockwaves from across the ocean did nothing to resolve the political stalemate. On the contrary, they set in motion a process of government intervention in the financial sector that last week resulted in another major political crisis and the resignation of the government. This came about because of (...) the near-collapse of one of the major banks, Fortis. (shrink)

Drieu Godefridi’s “Critique de l’utopie libertarienne”1 is not only an attempt to refute Rothbardian anarcholibertarian theory but also an attempt to resurrect the idea of the formal Rechtsstaat.2 I shall say a few words about the first topic and then present some arguments for resisting the introduction of that idea into classical liberal discourse. Contrary to Godefridi’s suggestion, there is no logical or historical ground for considering the Rechtsstaat a necessary or even useful condition of freedom. I do not dispute (...) that the Rechtsstaat was a central concept of the political liberalism that for a while held sway in Continental Europe in the nineteenth century, or that in some quarters there is considerable nostalgia for it. What I want to stress is that both in its logical definition and in its historical implementations it failed to support the classical liberal commitment to freedom, property and law. Indeed, it may.. (shrink)

Knowledge representation, which lies at the core of artificial intelligence, is concerned with encoding knowledge on computers to enable systems to reason automatically. The aims are to help readers make their computer smarter, handle qualitative and uncertain information, and improve computational tractability.

The writings of David Hume (1711–1776) are a treasure trove for those eager to find pithy, polished memorable quotes to bolster their arguments in favor of freedom, justice, and against the arrogance and follies of governments. It is difficult to resist the youthful élan of his major philosophical work, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–1740), his provocative ironic style, witticisms, irreverence, and occasional sarcasm, which made him an international celebrity, the darling of Parisian salons, and, even now, a reader’s delight.

The long stagflation in the nineteen-seventies broke the Keynesian hold on economic policy. Last year we witnessed the spectacular unraveling of neo-liberal policies of manipulating money and credit. While these episodes might be studied to explain the specific weaknesses and errors of each of the two policy paradigms that have dominated in the West after the Second World War, this lecture highlights the ideas and presuppositions that remained in place throughout the whole period. Despite the alliance that once existed between (...) libertarians and classical liberals, on the one hand, and neo-liberals, on the other hand, the latter did not have sufficiently coherent conceptions of freedom and free markets to produce a true alternative for the Keynesian idea of a scientifically managed economy as a utilitarian and pragmatic approach to the utopian goal of the greatest happiness for the greatest number, i.e., complete well-being for all. (shrink)

For our purposes it is convenient to divide the history of Europe into three periods. The first spans about a thousand years, from 500 BC, when Athens began to emerge as the dominant intellectual and cultural centre of Greece, to AD 500. It is the period of antiquity, of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. The second period, also a millennium long, from AD 500 to AD 1500, is that of Christian Europe. It began after the collapse of the Western Empire, (...) which is officially dated in 476. In that year the Germanic general Odoaker deposed the last Roman emperor and did not even bother to lay claim to the imperial throne. The Christian faith and its church filled the gap left by the disappearance of the imperial systems of administration, organisation and communication. The period ended when the Roman Church was successfully challenged by religious reformers, a new scientific and humanistic spirit agitated the intellectual scene, and European monarchs embarked on a policy of absolutism at home and of conquering the newly discovered continents in search of riches and colonies. Thus, AD 1500 is a convenient date to mark the beginning of the period of modernity, which continues to this day. On the next pages the reader will find an outline of European history, with marginal references to important thinkers and currents of thought. The outline lists in a rough chronological order some of the major events and transformations that have played a part in the genesis of the world in which we now live. The focus throughout is on the European continent, but when we get to the nineteenth and the twentieth century, it will be necessary to refer to what happened elsewhere. (shrink)

Is the modern large publicly traded business corporation compatible with a truly free market? The question itself may seem strange, even silly. Corporations are primary actors in what the media refer to as ‘the market economy’. Also, when the media refer to ‘the market’, they as often as not mean the stock exchange, which is the place where the shares of large corporations are traded. Moreover, during the age of socialist ascendancy, many defenders of the free market have felt themselves (...) moved to defend the corporation against socialist or ‘liberal’ attacks. Many genuine advocates of the free market even appear willing to make the stronger claim that a defence of the free market requires a defence of the corporation. In their view, defending the corporate form of business organisation is an essential part of the argument for the free market. Prima facie, there seems to be a strong case for saying that the large ‘publicly traded’ corporation is compatible with the requirements of the free market. Nevertheless, I believe classical liberals and libertarians have good reasons to question that view. First, what the media say is not always accurate even on the count of reporting facts, which supposedly is their core business. Conceptual analysis is not their forte. They do not have much consideration for the theoretical contexts from which terms such as ‘free market’ derive their significance or for the requirements of consistency in their use of such ‘theory laden’ terms. The stock exchange is a market of sorts, but it is not ‘the market’. In any case, the stock exchanges with which the media are familiar are not really free but rather heavily regulated markets. Second, socialist critiques of the corporation often were presented as critiques of free market capitalism and merited a vigorous response from the latter’s defenders.. (shrink)

In open heterogeneous multi-agent systems, communication is hampered by lack of common ontologies. Ontologies may differ in naming conventions, granularity and scope. In such an environment, the agents must possess the right conversational skills to effectively exchange information even when the speaker's ontology is only approximately translatable to the hearer's ontology. Furthermore, the agents must be able to autonomously establish an ontology translation by exchanging parts of their ontologies. In this paper, we propose a layered communication protocol in which the (...) agents gradually build towards a semantically integrated system by establishing minimal and effective common ontologies. We tested our system, called ANEMONE, on a number of heterogeneous news agents. We show how these agents successfully exchange information on news articles, despite initial difficulties caused by heterogeneous ontologies. (shrink)